ifices; with all that it
involves of reference to the ancient hopes on which a thousand
generations had lived, and which either are baseless delusions, or
are realised in Jesus--the Person whom all the Apostles proclaimed
was One anointed from God as Prophet, Priest, and King; who had come
into the world to fulfil all that the ancient system had shadowed by
sacrifice, temple, and priest, and was the Monarch of Israel and of
the world.

And not only were they absolutely unanimous in regard to the Person,
but they were unbrokenly consentient in regard to the facts of His
life, His death, and His Resurrection. But the proclamation of the
external fact is no gospel. You must add the clause 'for our sins,'
and then the record, which is a mere piece of history, with no more
good news in it than the record of the death of any other martyr,
hero, or saint, starts into being truly the good news for the world.
The least part of a historical fact is the fact; the greatest part of
it is the explanation of the fact, and the setting it in its place in
regard to other facts, the exhibition of the principles which it
expresses, and of the conclusions to which it leads. So the bare
historical declaration of a death and a resurrection is transmuted
into a gospel, by that which is the most important part of the
Gospel, the explanation of the meaning of the fact--'He died for our
sins.'

If redemption from sin through the death of a Person is the
fundamental conception of the Gospel for the world, then it is clear
that, for such a purpose, a divine nature in the Person is wanted.
Your notion of what Christ came to do will determine your notion of
who He is. If you only recognise that His work is to teach,
or to show in exercise a fair human character, then you may rest
content with the lower notion of His nature which sees in Him but the
foremost of the sons of men. But if we grasp 'died for our sins,'
then for such a task the incarnation of the Eternal Son of God is the
absolute pre-requisite.

Still further, our text brings out the contents of this gospel as
being the declaration of the Resurrection. On that I need not here
and now dwell at any length. But these are the points, the Person,
the two facts, death and resurrection, and the great meaning of the
death--viz. the expiation for the world's sins: these are the things
on which the whole of the primitive teachers of the Apostolic Church
had one voice and one message.

Now, I